Short on Tamiflu, not slogans

A random check by ToI at 10 medical stores located in Mithakali, Paldi and Gandhinagar, revealed that none of them had either Tamiflu or Fluvir. These drugs are standard medicine for H1N1 patients.Ashish Chauhan | TNN | August 19, 2017, 09:00 IST

Ahmedabad: Gujarat government’s slogan —‘Any flu, Tamiflu’ —seems to have misfired. Private chemists in the city fear they may soon run out of the stock of the swine flu drug, oseltamivir, because of the sharp increase in demand caused by the slogan.

Oseltamivir is sold under different brand names including Tamiflu and Fluvir. Even the generic medical stores – ‘Pandit Deendayal Pradhanmantri Jan Aushadhi Kendra’ at Civil Hospital and VS Hospital reported that they had ran out of ‘Tamiflu’ and ‘Fluvir’! These medical stores are committed to providing the poor and the middle class drugs at affordable rates.

A random check by ToI at 10 medical stores located in Mithakali, Paldi and Gandhinagar, revealed that none of them had either Tamiflu or Fluvir. These drugs are standard medicine for H1N1 patients.

On Thursday, the chief minister had visited the Civil Hospital in Asarwa to take stock of swine flu preparedness at a time when H1N1 had claimed 242 lives with another 2,500 patients testing positive.

This had prompted Rupani to give the ‘Any flu Tamiflu’ slogan for doctors so that they started treatment at the earliest.

A day later, ‘Jan Aushadhi Kendra’ on Civil Hospital campus, which was inaugurated by Rupani himself in May last year, did not have any brand of oseltamivir drug. A member of the hospital staff rued that they had not received any fresh stocks of Tamiflu or Fluvir in the past few days.

“It is uncertain,” is their stock response when asked when the drug is likely to be available.

Another private medical store on the Civil Hospital campus also did not have any oseltamivir brand.

“We cannot say by when we can provide you the medicine,” the store staff said. The medicine was only available to Civil Hospital patients at the medical store inside the Trauma Centre. However, this store is not giving drugs free-of-cost to patients with prescriptions from other hospitals and clinics.

However, at the Civil Hospital itself, there was no scarcity. Dr Asha Shah, head of medicine department at the hospital, said that they had sufficient stock of oseltamivir.The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation-run VS hospital in Paldi area is also facing a shortage of the drug. The Jan Aushadhi Kendra (or generic medical store) in the hospital did not have oseltamivir in its stock.

The price of 10 oseltamivir tablets or capsules is Rs 370 at the generic medical store while it is sold at Rs 490 per 10 tablets in private medical stores.

Dr ST Malhan, superintendent of VS Hospital, said, “We had enough stock five days back but I am not aware what the situation is currently. The store must be running out of the medicine.”

Incidentally, a large number of swine flu cases are being treated at these two hospitals. Further, tests and diagnosis is only available at these hospitals apart from Sola Civil Hospital.